Gold leaf can highlight the inlaid carvings on your dining room table.
Dining room tables can all start to look alike, especially if you have been shopping for a new one, or have been spending a lot of time in your friends' dining rooms. You can customize your own dining room table by adding some beautiful, permanent gilding to the table's surface. The table can reflect your own sense of decor while complementing the other dining room decorations and furnishings. This customization need not be a lengthy, complicated process to get pleasing results.
Instructions
1. Remove all items from the dining room table. Spread some newspapers under and around the table to catch any dripped gilding primer, size adhesive or gold leaf. Remove any dust and debris from the surface of the dining room table with a tack cloth.
2. Decide which areas on the table you will gild. Lines or decorations carved into the table are ideal areas for gilding. If your dining room table does not have any carving on it, you can gild each table corner. Apply gilding primer to these areas with a clean paintbrush and let it dry.
3. Apply an oil-based size adhesive, the glue which will bond the gold gilding to the gilding primer, to the areas to be gilded with a clean paintbrush. Let the size adhesive sit until it becomes tacky and rapping on the table does not dislodge it from the application areas.
4. Press the edge of a gold leaf sheet into an indented carved line with the pointed end of the paintbrush. Pull the sheet back to reveal the carved line limned in gold. If the carving you are gilding is relief carving or a flat surface such as the table edges, swirl a gilder's brush into the gold leaf sheet to load it with gold leaf. Gently brush the gold leaf onto the surface, blowing away and gathering up any excess gold leaf.
5. Burnish the gold leaf by brushing it in circles with a gilder's brush so that it completely adheres to your dining room table's surface. Add a gilding sealer over the gold leafed areas to ensure that the gold leaf stays in place and does not tarnish over time.
Tags: gold leaf, dining room, dining room table, your dining, your dining room, gilding primer